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(group member since Mar 07, 2010)
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night by Mark Haddon. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16...
221 pages
This novel was narrated by a boy with Asperger Syndrome, so it had a rather interesting style that was primarily informative and denotative . At first, the style was pretty interesting, but as the novel went on it became a bit tedious and I was more interested in plot development than the way that the narrator, Christopher, viewed the events that were going on. Even though it was tedious at times, I would still recommend this book to an avid reader or to someone looking for a quick read.
As a reader I wanted to read through the book quickly because I wanted to find out what was going to happen next. However, plot developments were sometimes ambiguous because Christopher’s narration of events were as they happened in his head and his observations were limited strictly to factual observations and devoid of connotations of the things he heard and emotions experienced by those around him. It is ironic that he noticed hundreds of details about the things around him and he remembered them for years, but the observations of the emotions his family experienced did not go beyond seeing if they were happy, sad, or angry. I also found it interesting as a reader to see a new perspective on thought and to explore the thought processes of Christopher and see how he interacted with his family and the world around him.
I may read another book by this author to see if this same style is ubiquitous in his novels.
Now that I have finished the novel, I can see that Haddon’s purpose was not only to show us the perspective of a boy with Asperger Syndrome, but also to write a bildungsroman about someone with a disability and show that someone who is so different can have the same coming-to-age as someone without a disability.
“…I will become a scientist. And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery of Who Killed Wellington? and I found my mother and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything.”
I would give this book a 3.7 out of 5.
After reading your review I am pretty interested in reading Act of Treason. It sounds like it would be a pretty intense and possibly give a few insights to the veiled fight on terrorism. Other than that, it was a well written review and has caused me to consider reading Act of Treason instead of the novel I had planned on reading after The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night by Mark Haddon.http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16...
Pages 1-158
Early on in the book I did not like the writing style because the novel is narrated by a thirteen year-old boy with Asperger’s Syndrome and written in a style that someone with a mental handicap would write. However, as I read further, I found that the book was quite entertaining and succinct when I skipped all of the lines of “I said” and “She said”. I had predicted that the boy’s mother was still alive, but I didn’t expect him to leave home alone to go visit her. I wonder what will happen when he gets to his mother’s home in London and meets the other half of his family. I predict that he will freak out because he his temerity will wear off and he will eventually snap back to reality.
This novel has a very interesting and unique style, so I have been captivated while reading it, however, it includes several math and logic problems that have slowed me down and distracted me while reading. Even though a few of these problems were somewhat confusing, the author did a good job of explicating them. When the main character, Christopher, found his mother’s letters and figured out that she was still alive I first thought that he would confront his father or call his mother and she would come visit them, but after he left for London I realized that this was going to be his coming-of-age.
An author’s purpose is their reason for writing and what they would like to accomplish in their writing. Authors can use four modes of discourse to do this: narration, description, exposition, and persuasion. Haddon is writing a novel about a boy writing a novel. The main purpose of the boy’s novel is to narrate events in his life. Haddon’s purpose goes a bit deeper and his writing serves to show us what life is like for someone with Asperger’s Syndrome. Tone is the feeling or emotional quality conveyed to the reader. The tone of the novel is set by the observations of the narrator, Christopher, and is informative, candid, sometimes comedic, and sincere. Christopher isn’t critical, but rather thinks of things as he sees them and analyzes everything as if they are math problems, so there is generally a positive or neutral tone coming from him. However, his father seems beaten-down, so there is also a tone of frustration and disappointment.
